Home Secretary sets out New Plan for Immigration

News Desk
Shottobani

London: The UK’ Home Secretary Priti Patel in her statement to Parliament said her New Plan for Immigration is for a faster and a fairer system. On 24 March addressing the Speaker of the House she said, ‘The government has taken back control of legal immigration by ending free movement and introducing a points-based immigration system.’
The new system will address the challenge of illegal immigration with a new, comprehensive, fair but firm, long-term plan.
She said while people are dying, we have a responsibility to act. People are dying – at sea, in lorries and in shipping containers – having put their lives in the hands of criminal gangs that facilitate illegal journeys to the UK. To stop the deaths, we must stop the trade in people that cause them.
She added, our society is enriched by legal immigration. We celebrate those who have come to the UK lawfully and helped build Britain.
Since 2015, almost 25,000 men, women and children seeking refuge from persecution across the world has resettled in the UK which is more than any EU country. The UK has welcomed more than 29,000 close relatives through refugee family reunion and created a pathway to citizenship to enable over five million people in Hong Kong to come to the UK.
According to the Home Secretary the New Plan for Immigration, access to the UK’s asylum system should be based on need, not the ability to pay people smugglers. The UK system is collapsing under the pressure of parallel illegal routes to asylum, facilitated by criminal smugglers. The existence of parallel routes is deeply unfair as it limits UK’s ability to support others in genuine need of protection. This is unfair to those desperately waiting to be resettled in the UK.
The New Plan for Immigration is driven by three fair but firm objectives. First, to increase fairness and support those in genuine need of asylum. Second, to deter illegal entry into the UK – breaking the business model of people smugglers – and protecting the lives of those they endanger and third to remove more easily from the UK, those with no right to be here.